Thursday, September 30, 2010

Post #363

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.
—Epicurus

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Post #362

What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print.
—Isadora Duncan

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Post #361

Doing what is right isn't the problem; it's knowing what is right.
—Lyndon B. Johnson

Monday, September 27, 2010

Post #360

Ability is of little account without opportunity.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Post #358

Quality is not an act.  It is a habit.
—Aristotle

Friday, September 24, 2010

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Post #356

If you want to succeed, you must make your own opportunities as you go.
—John B. Gough

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Post #355

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
—Erasmus

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Post #354

Choices are the hinges of destiny.
—Frederick Speakman

Monday, September 20, 2010

Post #353

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have  good chance of being a prophet.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Post #352

No one can defeat us unless we first defeat ourselves.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Friday, September 17, 2010

Post #350

He who has lost confidence can lose nothing more.
—Boiste

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Post #349

When you're through learning, you're through.
—Vernon Law

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Post #348

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.
—Pliny, the Elder

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Post #347

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
—Henry Kissinger

Monday, September 13, 2010

Post #346

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.
—Thomas Fuller

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Post #345

The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing.  The main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unforeseen attack.
—Marcus Aurelius

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Post #344

What makes a nation great is not primarily it's great men, but the stature of it's innumerable mediocre ones.
—José Ortega y Gasset

Friday, September 10, 2010

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Post #342

Well, we knocked the bastard off!
—Sir Edmund Hillary

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Post #341

People wish their enemies dead - but I do not; I say give them the gout, give them the stone!
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Post #340

Even if strength fail, boldness at least will deserve praise: in great endeavours even to have had the will is enough.
—Propertius

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Post #338

Wear your learning, like your watch in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one.
—Lord Chesterfield

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Post #337

Digo, paciencia y barajar. What I say is, patience, and shuffle the cards.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote)

Friday, September 03, 2010

Post #336

In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves for a bright manhood, there is no such word as - fail.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Post #335

Who is wise?
He that learns from everyone.
Who is powerful?
He that governs his passions.
Who is rich?
He that is content?
Who is that?
Nobody.
—Poor Richard's Almanac

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Post #334

Pride had rather go out of the way than go behind.

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.
written by Theodore F. MacManus

A deadly viper once bit a hole snipe's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the snipe, that died.

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El Paso, Texas, United States
Native Texan · Navy Veteran · Various Scars and Tattoos · No Talent yet a Character

One From the Archives

Post #1234

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied...

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